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healingmirthA recent poll indicates that 40% of registered voters think Palin is qualified to serve as president. I can only hope that many of these people thought this was a civics test, and were confirming that they think she's over 35, and a natural born citizen of the US.
The more troubling option is that these people grew up hearing "anyone can grow up to be president" and took it to heart. Maybe they and I have a fundamental disconnect on the definition of qualified.
When our current president was first elected, I was among those who were not thrilled, but at the time, I thought, well, he had management experience, he'd run *a* government. I was more concerned about, say, conservative judicial appointments than the possibility of stupid ideas put into action through haphazard planning. I was slightly embarrassed that, for the next 4 years, we were going to be represented by someone who I would not have chosen to claim as either friend or colleague, but I didn't think personality should have been a deal-breaker. I maybe underestimated the extent to which personality is an indicator of behavior and belief, instead of just the icing over it.
Having lived my young adult life in a time of relative peace and prosperity, I guess I believed that the job of president was not actually all that difficult. There are advisors, and agencies, and I had the reasonable expectation that those people were being hired on the basis of their professional qualifications, and would be listened to. I have since come to the conclusion that since We the People only get to choose one thing about the administration, and then just pray that everything else works out okay, it is not good enough to vote for a ticket that is just "good enough."
I was out of the country the week the US invaded Iraq. The group I was with joked about pretending to be Canadian. I've only been on one trip outside the country since then, and if I hadn't been with an enormous group of family and others from the US, I might have pretended then too, if only to avoid being drawn into conversations like the one I had with a cab driver about the upcoming presidential race. It is horrifying to me that I am not proud of my country because its government bears so little resemblance to the meritocracy that our country is fabled to be. If I had children, I would want to be able to point to the President, and not just the presidency, as an example of what they could aspire to be.
I didn't think McCain was a bad option, at first. I think he's well-qualified on the basis of his tenure in government, and none of his stated policies (given that there is no "good" solution to our involvement in Iraq out there, just varieties of painful ones) sent chills down my spine. I am, however, increasingly horrified by his selection of Palin and what that may indicate about who else he's going to choose to work with him. I don't know if its worse to believe that she thinks she's qualified, or to think that she doesn't think she's qualified, and just lies when she's scared. While I don't think I'll ever agree with many of her positions, I wish she had learned to explain them coherently so that we could be discussing policy instead of idiocy. Of course, after the past 8 years, I'm perfectly content to abandon academic debate and let her sink McCain's campaign in order to give the Democrats a shot at it.
We are all extraordinarily blessed to have been born in (or had the opportunity to move to) the United States. I don't understand why people seem to be trying to repay that gift with a slow slide into mediocrity.
The more troubling option is that these people grew up hearing "anyone can grow up to be president" and took it to heart. Maybe they and I have a fundamental disconnect on the definition of qualified.
When our current president was first elected, I was among those who were not thrilled, but at the time, I thought, well, he had management experience, he'd run *a* government. I was more concerned about, say, conservative judicial appointments than the possibility of stupid ideas put into action through haphazard planning. I was slightly embarrassed that, for the next 4 years, we were going to be represented by someone who I would not have chosen to claim as either friend or colleague, but I didn't think personality should have been a deal-breaker. I maybe underestimated the extent to which personality is an indicator of behavior and belief, instead of just the icing over it.
Having lived my young adult life in a time of relative peace and prosperity, I guess I believed that the job of president was not actually all that difficult. There are advisors, and agencies, and I had the reasonable expectation that those people were being hired on the basis of their professional qualifications, and would be listened to. I have since come to the conclusion that since We the People only get to choose one thing about the administration, and then just pray that everything else works out okay, it is not good enough to vote for a ticket that is just "good enough."
I was out of the country the week the US invaded Iraq. The group I was with joked about pretending to be Canadian. I've only been on one trip outside the country since then, and if I hadn't been with an enormous group of family and others from the US, I might have pretended then too, if only to avoid being drawn into conversations like the one I had with a cab driver about the upcoming presidential race. It is horrifying to me that I am not proud of my country because its government bears so little resemblance to the meritocracy that our country is fabled to be. If I had children, I would want to be able to point to the President, and not just the presidency, as an example of what they could aspire to be.
I didn't think McCain was a bad option, at first. I think he's well-qualified on the basis of his tenure in government, and none of his stated policies (given that there is no "good" solution to our involvement in Iraq out there, just varieties of painful ones) sent chills down my spine. I am, however, increasingly horrified by his selection of Palin and what that may indicate about who else he's going to choose to work with him. I don't know if its worse to believe that she thinks she's qualified, or to think that she doesn't think she's qualified, and just lies when she's scared. While I don't think I'll ever agree with many of her positions, I wish she had learned to explain them coherently so that we could be discussing policy instead of idiocy. Of course, after the past 8 years, I'm perfectly content to abandon academic debate and let her sink McCain's campaign in order to give the Democrats a shot at it.
We are all extraordinarily blessed to have been born in (or had the opportunity to move to) the United States. I don't understand why people seem to be trying to repay that gift with a slow slide into mediocrity.
